


Precious metals

by Crazyamoeba



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Gen, Insecure Will Graham, M/M, Talking, Therapy, non-sexual reference to age difference dynamics, very mild, will and hannibal have a surprisingly productive therapy session
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-02-24 01:21:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23701357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crazyamoeba/pseuds/Crazyamoeba
Summary: Will wonders why on earth Hannibal Lecter - he who values manners above all - keeps wanting to spend time with him.Particularly when he can't even begin a therapy session without insulting the man who is the closest thing Will has to a friend.Hannibal doesn't seem to mind, and never misses the opportunity to examine the bruises that Will never means to show him.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 14
Kudos: 147





	Precious metals

* * *

In a typical show of frankly obnoxious consideration for others, Hannibal had taken a careful and considered approach to the choice of clock he had placed in his patient’s waiting room.  
Silver, clean and sharp, it delivered its news with ruthless and silent efficiency. Will had never seen it even one minute out of time - although he has the only vaguely unsettling thought that he might not be the best person to judge that - with impartial, judicious sweeps of its silent second hand.

Will supposes that Hannibal had chosen it precisely because of its ability to hold its tongue yet keep its hand in motion. Supposes that perhaps Hannibal had known that a loud, heart-clenching, tooth-grinding tick might not have been the most comforting sound to expose his patients to.

It never occurred to Will to hate it before this moment, but now he grieves its subtle silence because he thinks that perhaps a loud, obnoxious ticking might make it demonstrably easier to at least pretend that he was unable to hear Hannibal’s current patient making what appeared to be his plight.

He can’t actually hear any of the words being spoken, by either party, and honestly, he thinks that may be worse.  
As things stand, he can hear tone and timbre of both men, rising and cresting, falling again in jarring argument with that stupidly smooth second hand, which refuses to rise to the bait, and for just a second or perhaps two, Will finds himself envying a goddamn clock.

Because there is something about listening to the tones drifting from behind the door - one the strained tones of one trying and failing for charming but very much achieving beseeching, and the other calm, sonorous almost, lilting smooth and unaffected and politely, distantly soothing - that is making Will’s palms sweat and his heart race.

He has no idea why. There is nothing in the patient’s voice that even approaches the memories that Will’s mind is trying to drag from his throat like it was only yesterday that it had made those frantic, angry sounds. There is nothing from this unknown man that even approaches the weak-kneed, raging fear that sometimes leaps from memory unbidden, and there is certainly nothing from Hannibal that could ever approach the roughness with which the words “you mind me now, boy” sometimes ring so clearly in his ears that Will sometimes finds himself looking over his adult shoulder for a specter that shouldn’t still tower so.

Will wonders vaguely - in some kind of doomed attempt at distracting himself - if Hannibal is even capable of making such rough sounds.

A part of his mind reflexively balks at imagining Hannibal making those harsh, grating consonants, but he brings himself back from the brink enough to realise that he’s probably being patronising. Hannibal is not a delicate debutante. He is just as capable of violence in his words and tone as the next man. Perhaps more so, if the subtle and eminently intriguing line of his mouth when it teeters on the knife-edge of gentle cruelty is any indication.

It’s just that Will can’t quite shake the shape that Hannibal has taken on inside his head.

Hannibal is...elegant and upright. Calm and collected and always in the utmost possession of himself and those around him; he collects Baltimore socialites and movers, gathers them around him like shining, bejewelled birds, all perfectly content to sit in the palm of his hand and peck, peck, peck.

All of the sounds that Hannibal allows to fall from his lips are graceful, though they do not always manage to fall into something entirely kind. There is always empathy, but sometimes it is eclipsed by a sharp, glinting fascination that is far too much like a predator marvelling at the small, soft creatures, to be kind.

Now, for example, his words - whatever they may be, distorted as they are through the deliberately heavy door - are couched in a calming layer of understanding, of empathy. There is comfort being imparted with the notes that he produces, although it is the slightly cool and measured kind of response that makes Will wince, because he recognises it.

Hannibal’s therapist voice, dispensing considered, well-thought out questions that feel very much like advice unless you look too closely and realise that you are yet another bird that Hannibal is gently, effortlessly singing to - leading you down the path with a trail of breadcrumbs that he has gently guided you into laying down for yourself.

Insisting, gently and cruelly, that the only person who can truly save yourself is You.

Except Will has admittedly been hearing that less and less. Or perhaps it’s not so much that he’s been hearing it less, and more that when Hannibal does lay out those breadcrumbs, they are sprinkled with more and more of his own making. Will could barely make out the difference between the two at first, but now he’s adept at spotting the oddly comforting flavour of thoughts that are uniquely Hannibal’s, gifted to him warm and comforting and almost familiar.

He also laughs sometimes, and the first time Will had heard it, it had been shocking enough to draw a smile from him, even though he had been battling a migraine at the time.  
It had been delicate and musical, something that Will could not mistake for involuntary, and yet it had seemed entirely genuine. A choice that Hannibal had made, to let that sound fall between them, and yet a truthful one.

The time that Will had heard the slightly husky, almost rasping sound which indicated that Hannibal hadn’t truly bothered to consider whether to allow it past his lips, Will had felt a strange warmth in his chest, in his suddenly racing heart. Had schooled his expression of - of fucking doe-eyed wonder, Will, Jesus Christ - into something a little calmer, a little less breathless, lest Hannibal catch sight of it and decide that it was a bad idea to allow someone like Will so close.

Hannibal’s voice fades a little from behind the door, as if somehow Will’s sticky thoughts have imposed themselves through the keyhole, grasping all over Hannibal’s sharp suits with cold, impudent fingers. Will straightens in his chair and tries not to feel like he’s missed a step going down the stairs when he realises that he can’t even focus on the tick of the damningly silent clock.

Tries not to feel like he’s pushed someone else down an entire flight when the soft woosh of Hannibal’s office door precedes the man himself.

“Good evening, Will.”

Will’s never quite sure whether he’s imagining the smile or whether that’s actually what Hannibal’s mouth is doing when he sees Will sitting in his customary chair, but it makes his own lips try their damndest, and he doesn’t even resent it most days.

“Hey. Sorry, I’m -”

Hannibal tilts his head, smooth and graceful like a cat, eyes not so bold as to glint, but Will knows they’re doing something, like the sharp edges of stars hidden by harmless cloud.

Hannibal’s hand pauses where it hovers outstretched, where it always waits to never quite rest on the small of Will’s back to guide him inside. Will has the odd idea that it’s like watching an automaton - beautiful, cold, and ultimately so much of both that it can only ever be unreachable - be thrown out of its programming.

Unexpected input. Pause for further data.

Will doesn’t know where the hell he gets off making these comparisons, given that he too is frozen not only to the spot, but halfway through the sentence he was never sure he knew how to finish. If Dr Lecter looks like beautiful, artificial perfection, then Will is sure that he looks more like a deer in the headlights.

“Whatever can you have found the time to be sorry for, Will?”

There’s a certain dryness to Hannibal’s humour that is neither kind nor particularly unkind, and Will sometimes forgets how much he appreciates that.

He forces himself to stop looking at Hannibal’s hand where it waits in the air, and meet the man’s gaze. He’s forced to reassess his earlier comparisons.

There is something far too warm - almost indecently hot-blooded, and for some reason it makes Will’s own face heat - in the interest that glints across Hannibal’s otherwise serene gaze. Will was never a great one for hunting, but he knows what it’s like to see movement in the undergrowth. It’s like looking at a raptor, eyes dark and unknowable.

He shakes his head, chastises himself and wonders why his daddy ever thought he’d done a good enough job, thinks that he’s probably no better than the people that exchange glances with each other when they hear Hannibal speak for the first time.

“Sorry, I’m -”

A sigh, frustrated - his own.

Warm, rasping laughter - decidedly not his own, and enough to startle him into moving within the not-quite touching range of that guiding hand he’s suddenly so fascinated by.

“Come. We have plenty of time to unwrap any apologies you may like to give me. We could perhaps venture to assess their worthiness, or whether they are best left to another party.”

Will huffs a laugh of his own and hates how it lacks the doctor’s warmth.

“Re-gifting, Dr Lecter? You surprise me.” He allows Hannibal’s arm to encircle the air just above his waist, and to half-settle the thing inside his chest that snaps its teeth at such a missed opportunity.

“Isn’t there some unwritten rule somewhere that condemns re-gifting as the height of rudeness?”

“Indeed, I am fairly certain that the rule is written, more than once.”

The words, like that half-smile on his face, are spoken as mildly and as gracefully carefree as the line of the doctor’s body as he stalks calmly through his office in Will’s wake, and for a moment Will feels his chest tighten.

“I wish I could care as little as you do.”

The words freeze on their way out of his mouth, but unfortunately not actually enough to paralyze his stupid, loose lips, and the syllables fall to the floor between them, clattering and breaking into hundreds of tiny, glittering pieces that glint under the dim lighting. Will wishes he could close his eyes against their incriminating glare, wishes he could collect them back up in his hands, swallow them whole, even if they cut his mouth.

“Christ, I’m -” he just about manages to choke back the profanity that wants to spill out and join their brethren on the floor. Hannibal has never actually given any indication that swearing offends him, but Will wants to shield him from that much at least. The ridiculousness of someone like him wanting to shield someone like Hannibal makes his face burn and his stomach twist.

Hannibal is looking up at him from beneath an eyebrow that is ever so slightly quirked and a mouth that definitely is, and Will feels his face try to immolate itself and take his soul with it.

“I’m sorry. That was...beyond rude. And not how -” he chuffs, mortified and oddly enraged that the truth would now ring as false and saccharine on his tongue, flimsy excuses to backpedal after the damage was done.

“Don’t worry so much about how the words will sound, Will. This is a place for you to say exactly what you want to say, without fear of judgement or censure.”

Hannibal’s tone is light and his face open, and Will manages to hold back the derisive snort he can feel at the back of his throat as he again lifts his hand to guide Will to his usual chair, and again fails to actually make contact with the small of Will’s back.

He adds a shameful snarl to the list of sounds he is holding back, and refuses to think about why that particular move aggravates him so much as he tries not to lean into it and take his seat without further incident.

“My words, without judgement? Forgive me, Dr Lecter, but doesn’t that sort of defeat the point of therapy?”

Hannibal takes his seat opposite Will, as unruffled and gently amused - or at least, Will thinks it’s amusement - as ever, as he unbuttons his jacket and sits back. Will tries not to stare at the hand as it deftly flicks the fiddly button away from its home.

“You submit your statement, and I sit in judgement?” Hannibal questions mildy, tilting his head like a bird. “I have no qualms about reminding you that this is not a courtroom, if that is what you require of me.”

Will doesn’t quite manage to hold back his snarl this time, and allows the curl of his lip to speak for him.

Hannibal’s lips quirk in a soft, gentle mirror image and he dips his head, acquiescing.

“I’m sorry, Will. If I may offer my own analogy?”

“I think you just did, doctor.”

That smile again, soft and barely there, to such an extent that Will has to stare at the other man to even be sure that his eyes aren’t playing tricks, and he has to surrender his usual defensive wall of blindness. There would be zero point in purposefully, wishfully clinging onto an outdated diagnosis of autism with Hannibal, and Will finds himself struggling with feelings of resentment and aching, blistering gratitude.

Hannibal keeps his face gentle and still, turned ever so slightly away from Will under the pretense of setting his notebook down on the table, allowing Will to look his fill, examine the expression that Hannibal obligingly keeps there until Will is satisfied enough to unclench his fists and lean back in his chair infinitesimally.

“Sorry. I know that one was all mine. Knock yourself out.”

The words taste gently sweet like relief, nothing like the sour aftertaste of defeat and unwilling submission that usually soaks between his teeth after he bows his head to Jack, or obligingly glances away from Alana. He allows himself not to tense up when Hannibal inclines his head gracefully, acknowledging Will’s surrender without making a fuss. The small eyebrow quirk Will allows, presumably because most people temper their urges to use such mundane, clumsy phrases or to invite Hannibal Lecter to render himself unconscious.

“I will not patronise you with an insincere disagreement; indeed, therapy without some form of judgement would be futile. But I am uninterested in the judgement of right and wrong. The only judgements I make are how best to help you attain the goals of your therapy.”

Will forces his lips to curl into a smile, but he can feel that they curve tight and wrong within his face. He feels a little cool, and he narrows his eyes, like Hannibal is sitting on the other side of a light fog.  
It makes him feel strangely wrong-footed and ill at-ease, and the sight of another one of Hannibal’s smiles - different this time, just a little wider and a little deeper and with something almost rueful about it - makes the fog clear just a little.

“I meant only to say that you need not editorialise your words.” Hannibal dips his head again, as though acquiescing to a point that Will hadn’t made. This time, he insists on eye contact that Will forces himself to make. “This is a place for first draughts and rough sketches. You do not need to gild your words, nor mind my feelings. I want to see those parts of your design that you are unsure of, Will, not just the final piece that you carefully choose to present to the world.”

There is a pause, during which Will desperately wants to wrap his arms around himself, but feels as if the movement itself will make him feel even more flayed than Hannibal’s words and soft gaze. He swallows, and despises himself for the loud, bone-snap clicking sound that it produces.

“You are always frugal with your words, Will. If there are any that are so persistent that they cling to your teeth, you should trust that I would like to hear them, even if you don’t consider them worth speaking. And bear in mind that we have already agreed, you and I, to use apologies sparingly.”

“You agreed to that. I just wanted to eat my breakfast without having to bare my soul for it.”

Hannibal’s lips tilt at the corner, and for some reason Will feels the defensive spines that itch at the skin of his back retract and soften slightly.

He sighs, opening his mouth, trying to ignore the taste of something like surrender and flimsy excuses. Trying to ignore the way that Hannibal’s even gaze and unflinching expression seem to drag the bitterness from his tongue.

He looks away, stares at Hannibal’s hand instead of his face, because he doesn’t want to see if the facade ever does break, and his eye is half-caught by the glinting of something vaguely out of place there.

“I didn’t intend to be so goddamn rude. Not even sure I was aware I was thinking it until it came out of my mouth.”

Will tilts his gaze upward to meet Hannibal’s, figuring that the least he owes the man is that small mark of respect. Tips his head in an attempt to slosh a smile from his unyielding lips, feels himself only manage a crooked baring of teeth and quickly abandons the attempt.

Tries to pretend that he didn’t see Hannibal’s eyes grow warm and the tiniest, sharp sliver of his own teeth peek through his lips in response.

He sighs, and it comes out jagged and perilous, like dancing atop a cliff edge.

“It was supposed to be...a compliment, I guess?”

He winces, hears the faint whisper of cloth against cloth as Hannibal straightens slightly, and Will isn’t sure whether to feel fondness or unease when the motion reminds him of a great dog pricking up its ears from where it had lain indolent and at ease.

Or perhaps simply the gentle rustle of feathers that the unfortunate mouse never hears before talons pierce its skin.

Will can feel more than see Hannibal’s head tilt, although he does detect the movement from the corner of his eyes as he quickly decides that focusing on his therapist’s hands is no more comfortable than seeing the look in his eyes as he has to withstand Will’s clumsy, fumbling attempts at interpersonal relationships.  
Steadfastly ignores the fact that the ‘interpersonal relationship’ between patient and therapist should be as close to non-existent as possible.

“You’re always so...untouchable.”

Manages to contain the violence of the wince but not the reaction itself, because his voice came out soft and breathy, fucking wistful, and with the bitter ache of admiration and something More than Will does not recognise and doesn’t want to identify.

Will hears that shifting again, although this time it sounds somehow softer, and Will has to try very hard not to audibly scoff at his own thoughts. Has to try harder not to let another sound out when he hears that corresponding softness in Hannibal’s voice.

“I assure you, Will; I am flesh and blood just as you are.” Careful, considered, as Hannibal’s tone always is. From anyone else, Will would describe those quiet conversational pigeon-steps as hesitation. From Hannibal, it is merely unasked-for gentleness.

“I am not perfection born corporeal, nor inhuman. You need reach no further than an arm’s length if you wish to touch me. It is simply rather frowned upon for a therapist to spend his patient’s hour discussing his own frailties of body and spirit. It rarely means that he is free of them.”

Will doesn’t feel anywhere near the chill that he thinks he should as the words alight, delicate and playful, on his skin. He feels sure that, if he were still standing outside the door and hearing those same words directed towards the unknown patient from earlier, that he would feel the horrifyingly polite layer of patrician frost settle thin and brittle on his skin even through the thick oak of Hannibal’s office door.

He raises his eyes, disbelieving, and allows himself to study Hannibal’s face, to figure out why in seven hells those words are at absolute worst gently chiding, and at the best that Hannibal surely intended them to be, they are bemused and conspiratorial, like they have intimate secrets between them that are not meant for the rest of the world.  
Will just about manages to keep himself from grimacing when he realises that this intimacy is certainly true for himself - Hannibal, after all, probably knows him better than anyone else on the entire fucking planet - and the sudden truth as well as the knowledge that he is unarmed in this battle of intimacies, sinks into the softest part of his belly and aches, forces his laughter out of him, trembling and bitter.

“I find your frailties difficult to imagine, Dr Lecter.”

Hannibal glances down, but while the gesture is typically graceful, there is nothing demure nor abashed about it. Will imagines for a moment that it might be to hide or at least attempt to gain control of the smile that softens his face, but Hannibal has never seemed very interested in hiding his unconventional pleasures from Will in the past.

He ignores the way something small and dark kicks inside his stomach, ignores the way his teeth itch with the strange desire to bare them in a smile; Hannibal’s mask is perfection itself - Will has envied it from the moment it was presented to him in Jack’s office. Wants to circle it endlessly, admire it. Touch it.  
He has only ever seen it shift - never crack, and never without desire or purpose - in this room, before him. He smiles, and Hannibal’s gaze when it lifts seems to glint with the reflection of sharp, smiling teeth.

“Surprising. Would you like me to call Uncle Jack, perhaps advise him that his teacup has sprung a leak?”

As light and airy as the words are, bumping politely against the wall of Will’s fractious mood, it takes them a while to properly filter through to Will’s brain.  
The mildly enquiring look in Hannibal’s eyes only just tips over to the wrong side of too earnest; his body recognises it before his brain gives itself permission, and he is mildly ashamed of the rough, barking quality of the laughter that breaks from between his teeth. His natural, unguarded laughter is not refined or winsome.

Can’t find it in himself to do anything about it because ever so occasionally, Hannibal Lecter deigns to remind everyone that he has a kind of savage grace to his humour, and Will doesn’t care to examine the warm, roiling thrill he gets from it.

Hannibal is watching him with easy creases around his eyes, and on anybody else Will would absolutely call them laugh lines. Hannibal’s mouth even deigns to move in such a way to corroborate this theory, and Will feels himself relax back into his chair rather than perch on the edge of it. Allows the aftershocks of his laughter to move gently through his body, give it permission to uncurl into the welcoming shape of Hannibal’s expensive furniture and the man’s warm regard.

“Yeah.” Will allows out on his last breath of quiet laughter. “Okay, ouch, I guess. I deserved that - but no. Please don’t call Jack.”

A small grimace that he doesn’t bother to hide.

“Preferably about anything. I don’t like the idea of you two talking to each other without me in the room.”

Hannibal nods graciously, accepting the victory without offering the falsely sweet taste of self-deprecation that so exhausts Will when he has to bear it from other people. Hannibal, for all his arcane knowledge of social strata and its pitfalls, for all his overwhelming knowledge of courtesy, art, literature, language, makes things beautifully simple sometimes, and Will aches with the gratitude of not having to work decipher hidden meanings beneath pretty words.

“This is what I mean.” The words bubble out from between his lips like laughter he wouldn’t recognise if it were to come out of his mouth. It tastes like desperation, like an aching for answers, but something about the way Hannibal tilts his head in genuine enquiry takes the bitterness from it.

“You’re….you’re never caught off-guard. You always know what to say, when to say it. When to stop saying it.”

Hannibal’s expression doesn’t change as such, but there is a certain sharpening behind his eyes. It should be off-putting. It should make the already severe lines of his face even more unforgiving, even less approachable. Instead, it makes Will shift forward in his seat and look between Hannibal’s eyes, which is the closest he’s got to eye contact since he turned seventeen.

Instead, he can feel himself opening to himself up to the sharp lines of that face, like skin beneath loving scalpel, because it’s not a threat that he sees there, it’s interest.

Hannibal Lecter may have the shrewd gaze of a predator beginning to stretch its wings, but Will only wants to huddle beneath the warmth pluming from beneath those feathers. Wants to preen a little himself, because he’s seen Hannibal’s politely interested professionalism before now, and this is not it.

He even makes an encouraging sound, leans back in his chair, bemused and almost like he’s relishing the experience of being gently surprised by the words, and Will isn’t going to wait to be told twice.

“I know I’ve never truly seen you in your element. I can only imagine what you’re like with your high-society friends.”

Even manages to impatiently brush aside his desire to squirm at the bitterness that he can’t quite keep locked between his teeth, or the distinct flavour of I have fantasised about watching you in your natural habitat that suffuses his words. Manages to force down the awkward internal shriek of he’s going to think you’re angling for an invite, you dirty little boy!

He chances a glance a little further back from Hannibal’s forehead, allows himself the risk of taking in the whole picture.

Hannibal’s head is still on that enquiring tilt, and though there was the briefest flash of a mild smile at the mention of his element, Hannibal remains silent in both vocal and facial expressions, though not blank enough that Will gets nervous that he might have crossed the line from uncomfortably reverent to offensive.

“I’ve seen you fit into pretty much every space you’ve ever walked into. I’ve seen you at crime scenes with people whose lives are being zipped up into black plastic bags. You always know who and when and how to touch. Who to soothe and who to simply share air with.”

He remembers Hannibal standing graceful and serene while a mother wailed against him. Remembered him utterly failing to buckle awkwardly as her strength left her and her knees folded. Remembered being surprised - and then ashamed for it - at the gentleness and intimacy with which he had cradled her, put his hand on her hair. Encouraged her head to rest on his shoulder, her grief to soak into the fine wool of his coat.

Remembered how his grace and serenity never left him, how his empathy for that woman’s pain had provided a slightly softer landing for the shattered pieces of her life as they fell down around them all. Remembered feeling something else entirely when the soft almost-crooning words had smoothly and instantly dried up, the lines of shared pain smoothing out, leaving no traces of empathy behind as soon as the paramedics had taken her gently off his hands.

Remembered feeling cold as if someone who had been standing next to him and sharing their warmth had suddenly and unceremoniously left his side. Remembered feeling like he would give anything to borrow whatever cloak Hannibal shrouded himself with, the ease with which he could seemingly take it on and off. Being both fascinated and a little repulsed with said ease, which did nothing to stop the burning envy of it.

Remembered looking at Hannibal as he was cradling that woman, and not knowing who he envied more.

“Comforting those in distress is part and parcel of my profession, Will. I have had many years of practice. Professional grace and ease with our fellow man are not necessarily the same thing. I don’t believe you need me to tell you this in the strictest sense, however I will happily do so, as often as necessary.”

Will’s jaw clenches, and he resents the almost violent tic he has to employ to force it to unclench.

“I shoved a cat at a grieving father, because the thought of his closeness, the thought of his grief touching me, was so repulsive that I picked the nearest warm-bodied creature and sacrificed it to my selfishness.”

“To your fear.” Hannibal remains utterly unmoved by Will’s awkward facial twitching, and the embarrassing heat of frustration in his words. “You were afraid of what you would find in that room, and where it would take you. Neither of which is unreasonable. You feel an affinity for animals, it is only natural that you would land on a companion not so dissimilar from the ones you surround yourself with. You have not built altars to your own selfishness, Will, but to your fear. Even the most lapsed among us must occasionally sacrifice to that very same altar. It’s what keeps the nightmares at bay.”

Will snorts, but it comes out a little too wet for it to be either polite or anything Will can weather with dignity. It’s too late to swallow it down, but he does it anyway, tries to smile and make it something normal that isn’t cloaked in seven layers of secrets and shame.

“If I could tear my house down and build a church in its place, I’m still not convinced that would be enough to keep the nightmares out.”

“An unpopular choice with your dogs too, I imagine.”

Will felt the laughter leave him without permission again, rough and crooked like his smile. Tries to suppress the sense of gratitude and aching, false familiarity that keeps trying to assert itself when Hannibal does something as soothing as refusing to pity Will as others would.

He has to keep reminding himself that Hannibal is not an old, dear friend, and that if he feels like home, it is only Will Graham doing what Will Graham does, and not any kind of reflection of reality.

“Case in point, Dr Lecter. You always know just what to say.”

Can’t keep that crooked grin off his face, nor help the shameful warmth and, god, affection, that coat the words. Can’t even be too angry that the words are far too soft to yield as a weapon, as he had intended.

Hannibal gives him a small smile in return, curtailing it perfectly so that the edges of his lips bare just enough teeth to keep the expression from becoming too gentle.

“Practice, Will. And, if I may venture, a certain baseline knowledge of whom you are talking to.”

The words settle into some of those little cracks that Will is rarely even aware he has inside of him. He shifts in his seat, leaning back into the chair and folding his arms, uncrossing his legs,. Hoping that those small movements will distract from those few vulnerable seconds where his face is a perfect mirror of what is going on inside his chest, as it flickers between myriads of expressions, unsure of the directions its receiving from Will’s sticky, patched-over insides, and unable to hide that fact from the man sitting opposite.

He clears his throat, tries to dislodge the feeling Hannibal’s smooth, devastating words as they settle into his missing parts like icy water into cracked asphalt, tries not to think about how tiny cracks in the road become huge holes, forced apart by every new drop of water that sinks in and freezes, cracks them apart like ribs.

“A baseline knowledge is one thing,” he tries to swallow down the feeling of water in his throat, “but I’ve seen you at Quantico. And don’t get me wrong, but none of the people I work with seem like the type of people you’d usually choose to have around the dinner table.”

Zeller and his propensity to bristle at anyone who challenges his expertise, his borderline aggressive assertion of masculinity and superiority when things get heated.

Price and his seeming immunity to the aura that Hannibal puts off, which usually dissuades anyone from even thinking about cracking crude, sexual jokes in front of Hannibal; who frequently, albeit much more subtly, makes Hannibal the subject of some his less crude but still sexual jokes and flirtations.

Beverley, who is smart and confident and funny just like the guys, but who also shares the same unrefined, course humour that they do. Who Will has no doubt his capable of great grace, but who sees little need for court manners when dancing attendance to bodily fluids and torn skin.

Will shrugs.

“They were strangers to you when you first met.”

Hannibal merely blinks pleasantly at Will, head tilted ever so slightly, eyes wide and earnest, and Will spreads his hands out, helpless and challenging.

“And yet…”

Hannibal’s effortless navigation of Zeller’s insecurities. Shoring him up and doing so in a way that never undermines or infantilises him in front of the peers whose opinions he secretly holds in the highest regard, in such a way that doesn’t make it obvious that he was ever uncertain at all.  
Will has to swallow those memories down very deeply sometimes, to avoid seeing himself on the other side of that coin.

Smiling at Price’s jokes even though they’re crass and crude, and Will had been so sure for the longest time that Hannibal would rather die than actually laugh at some of the things that Price said, although sometimes there was a sharp glint in his eye that suggested that even Hannibal was not immune to the fact that human bodies were ridiculous things, so fragile and clumsy and base that the only thing one could do was mock them.  
He was a conspirator too, with Price’s flirtation, with such grace that it made Will’s chest ache to see it. It was something akin to playing along, but nothing so cruel as that, never anything but kind and gracious about the fact that it was so obviously outside the realms of possibility.

Will has to swallow even harder against those memories, and sometimes it feels like they claw and scrape at his throat on their way down, divert themselves from the stomach to the chest to sit there, heavy and tired, but always waiting.

Hannibal smiles, and it’s so achingly gentle that Will inhales deeply, reflexively, in preparation to have all the air knocked out of him again by the softly-spoken, tender man before him.

“People are rarely so guarded with their desires, Will. We are often not anywhere near as complicated as the psychiatric profession likes to pretend. We want and need things from our every social interaction. Most people do not bother to hide the things that they want, precisely because they want them. I have often found that if one remains silent for just a moment, one will be inundated with the wishes of a crowded room.”

Will manages to keep his jealously-guarded breath, though he doesn’t manage to contain the click of aching throat muscles as he greedily swallows it down safely.

“Does that sound like something you recognise, Will?”

He makes an embarrassing, utterly involuntary sound and has to stop there as the muscles of his throat close tightly around any words, and he’s almost surprised to learn how much those lost ones hurt.

Takes a moment to thank his body for essentially pulling the kill-switch before he cheerfully flayed any more of himself in Hannibal’s pristine office.

“Sometimes I recognise you more than I recognise myself. Other times, I’m not even sure what your reflection would look like.”

The only thing he has strength left to do is glare at Hannibal’s gently affable gaze of enquiry, wounded beyond comprehension by his failure to be drawn to anger by Will’s rudeness.

Licks his lips before he rolls the words around his mouth, letting himself get the barest feel of them, the taste of them between his teeth to make sure that he’s not letting too much bitterness fall into Hannibal’s hands.

“I’ve seen you smooth over awkward silences, put people at ease, make sure even the most awkward person at the dinner table is included in the conversation, not just...hiding behind your conversational apron strings.”

“Do you feel as though you hide behind my apron strings, Will?”

Soft, but far too quick for Will to feel them as anything other than twin, hungry pin-pricks. The claws of the bird of prey as they sink into his flesh. He flinches, and doesn’t bother to hide it.

“I don’t know. Is that something that you recognise when you look at me, doctor?”

Hannibal tilts one of those infuriating smiles at him, and Will can no more stop his aching grin than he could have prevented the flinch.

“What concerns me most is that I want to.”

“I’m your friend, Will. And before that, I was supposed to be your paddle, if you recall. The one does not preclude the other. Why are you so afraid to lean on me for balance?”

“What I’m afraid of,” his grin feels more like a baring of blunted, rotting teeth, “is strangling myself with those apron strings that I so desperately want to clutch at.”

Will feels the words peeling back far more than he meant to, and before Hannibal can do more than blink in that slow, dreadful way he has, Will is carefully selecting different, slightly less blood-soaked truths to lay down at this particular altar.

“I want to have what you have, but I’m afraid that I won’t wear it nearly so comfortably as you do.”

Hannibal smiles, seeing the substitution for what it really is, and allowing Will’s sticky fingers to replace the golden idols with his dented silver all the same. Prone to fading, perhaps, but no less genuine.

“I envy you.”

Like he had envied the tall, handsome boys in his classes. Like he had envied their normality and their prowess. Like he had envied their strong, tanned arms, looped around pretty girls’ waists. Like he had envied pretty girls.

He shook his head, trying not to juxtapose his awkward awakenings with what he was sure had been Hannibal’s graceful and ever present knowledge of himself.

He directs his gaze to Hannibal’s face, finding it preferable, for once, to focusing on the man’s hands. He sees that gently enquiring smile and allows his words to become a familiar drone, because it’s easier, sometimes, if he imagines that he is explaining a killer’s motivations to a classful of bored students, rather than voluntarily opening himself for Hannibal’s high-powered, tender perception.

“You know all the rules, whether they were written down in dusty tomes in a dead language, or whether they’re the ones we never speak of. You follow them with grace and charm, and you never need to so much as pause to remember them. And yet.”

Will doesn’t know why he feels like his throat is closing up around the words struggling to get out, or why his heart is pounding like something is chasing him through the woods. Like he doesn’t know whether his quarry is truly in front of him or bringing up the rear, grinning through bared and shining teeth.

“You discard them with the same grace and charm, and I wish I knew how you remain so untouched by all reproach that should come your way. I wish I knew why awkwardness never touches you, even when you do things that most civilised people should find the epitome of uncomfortable.”

“I frequently make you uncomfortable.”

The raw honesty of it startles Will, as does the mild tone of voice and the deliberately bland but genuine smile that accompanies the statement. Surprises a rusty bout of laughter from him, and he’s surprised at how bitter it doesn’t taste. Maybe it’s the fact that Hannibal laughs along with him that soothes any potential ache and dischordancy.

“Yeah, I don’t - I don’t know that I’m the best litmus test for civilisation.” He narrows his eyes as Hannibal’s own crinkle with pleasure. “Are you avoiding the question?”

“Isn’t that my line?”

Honestly, Will wants to curse the man for the cheerful ease with which he lobs that particular accusation neatly back over the net at Will, because he’s really only got the energy for one or two good serves in him today. The fact that he’s resorted to tennis metaphors makes him slightly concerned that he’s got even less in him than he thinks.

Hannibal, ever the gracious host regardless of location, eases his small smile - a smug grin on anyone else - back down a few notches, and lifts one hand from where it rests on his knee in an elegant gesture that would have been a shrug on anyone less refined.

“Perhaps I am avoiding the question. The one that you didn’t ask.” He raises his eyebrows gently at Will, who lets his gaze slide back to Hannibal’s hand. Addressee unknown, return to sender.

“If I am, it is only because I do not know how to answer it any differently or any more accurately than I already have.” Another shrug, a real one like a real person might give this time, and it still manages to look languidly beautiful. “Confidence. Perhaps experience. If it were dark magic, I would surely share it with you, Will.”

Will glances up for just long enough to share his tired smile in an effort to show that he appreciated Hannibal baring his soul for Will like this, but finds the slight twinkle of Hannibal’s eye and teeth to be rather worrying.

“Of course, being a somewhat older European oddity does give me a rather sturdy crutch to lean on at times, but alas, that is something I cannot share with you.”

Will’s interest is immediately peaked, and he can’t summon the grace to hide it. He leans forward in his chair and doesn’t even mind that Hannibal’s eyes track the movement keenly, the small flash of teeth peeking through his lips getting a little bigger and more subtly delighted in response.

“You’re aware of how you’re perceived. You cultivate it.”

“Most certainly.” Placid, content to offer no defence against Will’s gaze. Leaning back into his chair as Will leans forward, inviting the chase and greedy hands groping around his ribcage, searching for a way in.

“You’re aware of when you say or do things that might be perceived as awkward or just...not done, as far as American sensibilities are concerned.”

“I rather think that most of the transgressions you are recalling would be considered awkward in most cultures, my own place of birth being no exception.”

Will smiles and ducks his head, fiddles with his watch strap to give himself a little time to contain the odd rush of fondness that decided to trickle down his insides like the afterburn of a good whiskey. Feels oddly grateful, as if Hannibal has been generous with something other than his smiles and truth.

“It’s just that most of the people you pull that with are just insular enough to believe that Other Places are simply Different, right?”

Hannibal’s smile is small but clearly delighted, and Will thinks it was worth the risky glance up.

“How much of it is performative?”

The silence that swims up to greet his words is soft and comforting, but Will can’t parse what it means. He’s always been achingly grateful that he’s struck blind when he looks into Hannibal’s eyes, that there is a warm, soothing deafness that surrounds the man like ripples on the water.

“To peek behind the curtain is often to ruin the magic.”

Will risks another glance up, feels like he’s peering over the side of a flimsy lifeboat but can’t quite bring himself to ignore the impenetrable waters. Hannibal’s smile is startlingly gentle, and Will knows a rebuke when he feels one.

“Implying that there is magic to be ruined?”

Hannibal merely tilts his head, Will’s stomach following suit as he silently questions, in a Southern drawl that he had shed long ago, why he always has to push and push and push.

Hannibal has never done anything so paternal as to set an explicit verbal boundary for Will. This is one of perhaps two instances that Will can remember in all the time he has known the man, and it appears on the surface to be nothing more than a polite suggestion, wrapped in the soothing silk of humour, that this may be where Will wishes to stop.

He tries to make his sudden lurch back into his chair something a little less damning, and winces when Hannibal’s eyes calmly take in the minute movement of chair across floor.

“Sorry. I’m, uh - I’m doing that thing I always ask you not to do.” He tries to twist his smile into something less socially similar to a grimace, hopes that the spasming of random lip muscles somehow manages to convey that his discomfort is pointed inwards, at his own emotional clumsiness, rather than any sulkiness over a well-earned rebuke. Wonders, briefly, how people have the energy to go through this dance every single day.

“I do recall warning you that neither of us can shut off that particular gift.”

Will raises an eyebrow, pathetically grateful for how normal the exasperated gesture makes him feel.

“‘I told you so’? Really, Doctor Lecter?”

“I assure you, Will, I am rarely magnanimous in victory.”

Will feels warmth flush through him, amber-rich and tingling with the possibility that whiskey still manages to gently suggest to his veins when he does drink. He feels that eager restlessness settle in his legs like the need to chase or run, like he’s thrumming with the possibility of secrets shared between them like gifts, instead of merely the reluctant trophies Hannibal usually prizes from Will’s cold, sticky hands.

It makes him feel as boldly stupid as he does when he drinks to excess, allows himself to revel in the feeling of freedom this gives him, and for one heady moment he even thinks that it might be a little more real than the courage he sometimes finds in the bottom of his glass.  
Allows himself to smile as he tips his head back, just enough to make gentle contact with the back of his chair, but it feels thrilling and somehow illicit, and almost dulls the shame of still wanting an answer that Hannibal seems reluctant to give.

“It’s hard to believe, but I think I might.”

Hannibal’s voice is soft and cultured, lilting around every graceful turn of phrase. He always knows just what to say, and when and how to say it. He tailors his words to their recipients with as much precision as the person who makes his suits. He is kind and ruthlessly courteous. He dances considerate attendance to everyone who moves in his social circle, as if he never quite leaves the dinner parties he throws or the role of gracious, all-seeing host.

Will feels the uncertainty of his own smile and relishes it, because it makes him feel young and stupid and so awfully normal. It makes him feel like he’s flirting like a high-schooler, like the high-schooler he never got to be, and the thought is enough to send him crashing back down to the hard floor of Hannibal’s office, where his soul and his good sense had apparently both had a brief out of body experience.

“God, I never thought I’d say this, but can you please ask me a question about myself?” His head feels heavy all of a sudden, as though his brief trip had ended with a crash-landing. He rubs his hands over his eyes and tries to ignore the warm and sympathetic laughter that Hannibal allows to smooth over Will’s prickling skin. “Please, just - anything to make me stop asking offensive questions to the only person in my life I haven’t yet managed to alienate.”

Hannibal allows one more warm bubble of laughter to escape before politely stifling it, and then, because apparently the man really was telling the truth about his lack of magnanimity in victory -

“I’m not withholding answers because I’m offended, Will.” He gives an elegant shrug, and Will wishes he could look so suave when dissecting his own motives. “I merely didn’t want you to be disappointed with the answers you received, for in reality I am afraid they are rather banal.”

“Jesus, Hannibal, you’re not - not the goddamn tooth fairy, I don’t need you to protect me from the image I’ve built up around you.” Mumbling, head suddenly low, chin retreating to his chest as he feels his face heat. “I don’t actually think you’re magic.”

“And by the way, can we talk about boundaries at some point?” He can feel his arms waving erratically as he warms to the theme of his utter social failure here. “Because even if you weren’t my therapist, the myth that I have apparently created of you in my head is….Christ, it’s not great. It’s...something, more, something Other. If I were you, I’d rethink my decision to not take offense.”

“I don’t often find curiosity offensive, Will.” One of those slightly crooked smiles that makes Will feel like he’s seen something that nobody else should. An imperfection in the glasswork. Will feels like an asshole when one of his eyebrows climbs.

“Curiosity can be awfully close to rudeness, doctor.”

Hannibal smiles, benevolent and soft, and Will has to turn and fiercely contemplate one of Hannibal’s glass-framed curios in the hope that the man can’t see what Will feels rising behind his eyes.

“Perhaps the one from of rudeness that I may find acceptable, then. A necessary evil in the pursuit of knowledge, which I rarely find contemptible. Questioning and the desire to fill gaps in one’s knowledge is a healthy impulse, Will.” Here Hannibal dips his head slightly, levels Will with a slightly dry look that makes Will remember that he has a sense of humour, even as he squirms beneath the oddly intimate scrutiny there.

“All that is perhaps beside the point; I don’t believe that you struggle with social interaction to the extent that you are unable to pinpoint where idle curiosity crosses a social boundary.” Hannibal’s left brow raises by such a small increment that Will is left feeling resentful that such a small muscle on someone else’s face can make his own feel so cracked and flayed open.  
“No matter how much it may have benefited you up until now to rely on others believing that very thing.”

Will’s eyes snap back to the air around Hannibal, and he opens his mouth to say something, because it’s not so much the truth that Hannibal has spoken, but rather the way in which he has spoken it - serene and firm in the way that one might hush a fussy child - that seems to demand that Will say something in response.

But he can’t quite think of what exactly it is that he should be saying, so he simply ends up gaping at Hannibal, who seems frankly indelicately amused.

“Okay.” The gust of air that escapes Will just about manages to form the word so that he’s not left huffing and puffing like the child that Hannibal has just brazenly coddled him as. He leans back in his chair, both of his eyebrows feeling like they were trying to make a dramatic escape for his hairline, resentful of the minutely sardonic twitch of Hannibal’s own brows, which seems to say so much more than Will could ever hope to, even if he did use his words like a big boy.

Speaking of -

“Okay, care to test that theory, doctor? Wanna try on the kevlar vest of my curiosity, see how it stands up?” He doesn’t even wait for the graceful tilt of Hannibal’s head, which still somehow doesn’t manage to be quite graceful enough to hide his smile. “Indulge my curiosity. Did you keep your accent on purpose? Does it help you sell the image of that eccentric European you’ve dressed and groomed so pleasantly, or do we all get a peak behind the curtain every time you open your mouth?”

Hannibal’s eyes crinkle at the corners again, and Will ruthlessly insists on being irked by how smoothly and instantly the answer comes.

“I have undoubtedly lived here for long enough that I could have smoothed the remaining ragged edges around my English,” he confesses gracefully, and without a hint of remorse. He leans forward in his seat as though he is whispering to Will, and Will honest-to-god feels like Hannibal may even have it in him to wink.

“Although I have found that those ragged edges tend to snag at the wrinkles of people’s awareness. Differences in speech patterns often encourage people to pay close attention to the speaker.”

Hannibal’s eyes don’t linger on him, but Will feels a weight on his skin, his lips and his throat, like warm familiarity and damp Louisiana heat. Hannibal smiles gently, and Will resents how it makes him deflate.

He thinks of Hannibal’s brightly-coloured collection of socialites once more. Of how Hannibal...coos at them. Lulls them with his careful poetry and cultured accent. Feels as though Hannibal has exposed it to Will as the odd, gentle hook which people gladly allow themselves to be caught on, reeled in by the oddity that falls on the right side to be lyrical.  
Hannibal instructs like a born orator, like the professor that Will will never be. Could probably stroll into Will’s classroom, let Will’s syllabus ring clear and soft through the thick air, enticing his students into the kind of rapt, worshipful attention that Will could only ever have nightmares about.

And Hannibal would deal with it all - awkward, horrifying student crushes and all - with the kind of grace and generosity that even Will’s imagination could never conjure for himself in his dreams.

“Don’t you -” the words get clogged and Will clears his throat, attempting to dispel the sticky, warm vowels that are seeping back in through the cracks, “don’t you find that people are...more inclined to listen to how you say things, rather than what you’re actually saying?”

Hannibal tilts his head, and there is that horribly gentle smile that lets Will know that he’s said too much. Docilely prised his ribs open for a man who didn’t need the help and didn’t need to resort to splintered bone and soft red handfuls in order to see.

Hannibal huffs a small laugh, and Will makes the conscious decision to allow himself to be soothed by it.

“I find that particular brand of surface scrutiny is extraordinarily complimentary to the image of the European eccentric that I find so helpful.”

Will snorted, “What, people don’t really listen and you can be as rude as you like? I should have kept my accent.”

There’s a small curve at the corner of Hannibal’s mouth, enough for Will to catch a glimpse of sharp-looking, ever so slightly crooked teeth, and Will feels his own lips quirk in automatic response, as if jerked by connective tissue.

Hannibal makes a soft humming sound, and Will barely has time to tense.

“Indeed, you worked very hard to rid yourself of yours, didn’t you, Will?”

“Yeah.”

“Not one to enjoy the facelessness of being an oddity, hm?” The gently probing hum is so tender that it makes Will’s teeth itch with the need to spew perfectly-pronounced venom.

“Well, do you?” He feels the upturned quirk of his lips itch and shatter in place, tries to force it into a downturn instead of a snarling parody of what Hannibal had won from him. “You can talk all you like about your carefully-constructed image of the dapper European gentleman who doesn’t quite understand enough about American culture to understand that some of his quirks are just a little off, and I’m sure you’re right. I’m sure that does come with a certain sense of freedom. I envy you that. It must feel -” Will’s throat clicks as he swallows down the word that he wants to say.

“-good. To watch us all be stupidly charmed into blinding ourselves to all your transgressions.”

He can feel his face heat both with this sudden agitation and the utter humiliation of being so ambushed by it, as if it was just one more thing pacing in the dark peripheries with all the rest. Embarrassed by his childish lack of control, at being so helpless to turn this all off.

He can see Hannibal sitting across from him, still and serene as a calm sea, and he so furiously envies what he feels reflected back inside of him, so furiously envies that it’s not the affected stiffness and fixed smile of someone carefully containing their anger.

“But do you ever feel the stares?” He’s startled by the words, how they sound like air escaping some bloated, deflating thing, all of a sudden. His shoulders slump back into the soft leather of Hannibal’s chair, feeling a small stab of bitterness that they’re not tall enough for him to lean his head back against, perhaps affect a headache, roll his head off to the side and close his eyes so that he doesn’t have to witness himself doing this.

“Don’t you ever hear the laughter that people think is quiet, that people probably think is flattering because it’s…” he almost wishes he could have that earlier anger back, grasps for it weakly and finds it has entirely deserted him, abandoning him to Hannibal’s open, curious face and non-threatening stance.

“It’s crude. They think it’s flattering because a lot of it comes from a base kind of attraction to what they consider...different and exciting. Exotic.” He feels his own lip curl into a snarl and wonders at how Hannibal’s only form a soft, calm smile.

“How can you be so calm? So...okay with this?”

And he might not have to fake a headache at his point, because he’s not entirely sure whether he’s reliving bright, blade-sharp flashes of memory or empathy, because he doesn’t even need his empathy to know what it must be like for Hannibal, sometimes.

He’s been there, at the man’s side. The receptionists at the hotel giggling softly once they thought he and Hannibal were out of earshot, the memory of their flushed faces and coy smiles hard to shake. The trainees at the bureau who had smirked to each other, parrotted particular words and phrases in a ghastly, undignified pastiche of Hannibal’s accent that was probably only meant in fun - and which still saw Will only just restraining himself from publicly asking these untried idiots who the hell they thought they were, mocking someone to whom they could never even dream of measuring up.

He knew that Hannibal had to hear it. This was the man that Will swore could hear his thoughts before he was even aware of their shape inside his own mind. He knew from the tilt of his head, the blank politeness of his gaze, that he heard and saw everything.

“How do you sacrifice one for the other? How do you...how do you do it all?”

“I’m sorry, Will.” Despite the grave words, spoken in soft tones, so awfully gentle that Will automatically straightens up with waiting-room dread, Hannibal is smiling, an almost-sweet, private thing as he leans forward just a little more into Will’s space.

“An unerring knowledge of oneself, the kind which perhaps comes easier with age. I truly am sorry to dispense such terribly banal advice, but on this occasion, simplicity truly is the only truth I can offer you.”

Will holds Hannibal’s gaze, soft yet so very insistent that he’s unable to find any of his usual tics and twitches that will allow him to break the lock quite so easily. The swirling mass in his chest feels as though it might no longer choke him, and eventually he looks away when he’s able to take a breath.

“Sorry.”

“That one can safely be re-gifted, I think.”

There is a softness to the silence that follows that makes Will feel, for just a moment, like everything is going to be alright. That they are two normal men having a conversation about mundane things, able to joke and laugh as normal men might. He even laughs, and Hannibal returns it in as much as the gentle release of air from smiling lips could be called a laugh.

It makes him wonder why he has to ruin it.

“Why didn’t you tell me that you were married?”

Hannibal blinks twice in steady succession, and Will knows him enough to know that this is what passes as surprise on Hannibal. He smiles awkwardly, feeling thrown off not being in receipt of the expected smooth riposte, and nods down at Hannibal’s left hand.

“Your ring. I’ve never seen it before. So are congratulations in order, or…”

Or is this an old part of yourself that you’ve kept away from me?

Will grimaces, and hopes Hannibal doesn’t misconstrue the expression. Or perhaps it wouldn’t be such a misconstrual, Will can’t decide which would be worse.

Hannibal looks down at the smooth silver band - probably not silver, Will can’t imagine the man or anyone he’d spend his life with settling for less than platinum - on his wedding finger, and blinks once again, before a smile flitters across his face like fond remembrance. Will tries to swallow down the unknown things that try to clamour their way up his throat, and force his lips to mirror something akin to Hannibal’s unusually present smile.

“Ah.”

One word, and Will isn’t sure that it even counts as more than a sound. He’s expecting more, and when it doesn’t come, he lifts his gaze, mildly alarmed by this change in the script he’d written in his head.

The look on Hannibal’s face is odd; Will doesn’t remember having seen anything like it settle there before, and it looks almost like his features aren’t used to it and don’t particularly know what to do with it. He’s looking at his own hand thoughtfully, and when he blinks and looks up at Will, he’s wearing a smile that gracefully skirts the edge of rueful.

“Forgive me, Will. I usually remember to remove this before our sessions.”

Something hard and heavy, suspended on delicate, trembling threads until this moment, lands heavily in Will’s stomach, and he swallows the ripples with effort.

“I’m afraid that you’ve stumbled on one of the tricks of my trade that may spoil the magic somewhat and make you think rather less of me.” Hannibal removes the ring unhurriedly, rolling it between thumb and forefinger before slipping it into his pocket.

Even in this moment of clear admission of some kind of guilt - and Will has to reign in the little stab of vindication he feels, because Hannibal is under absolutely no obligation to inform Will about his personal life. He shouldn’t need to feel guilty about not indulging some pathetically overgrown lost boy whose boss practically dragged him into the consultation room kicking and screaming. It’s entirely reasonable that the man might want to set some of those boundaries that Will had been so keen on imposing just minutes ago.

But Hannibal is looking up at Will with a wry and conspiratorial smile, just a hair shy of charmingly sheepish, and if he hadn’t slicked his hair back today then he’d honest-to-god be peering up at Will through his fringe and there is something so painfully honest and endearing about the whole scene that something deep and insistent inside Will’s chest aches and creaks.

“It’s a tool that I have found useful in setting certain boundaries with a few of my patients who struggle to prioritise their therapy over their therapist.”

Sometimes, when Will is distracted on making his way into work, he thinks that there is one more step than there is, despite having worked at Quantico for more than long enough.  
He never understands why one single, missing step can make him feel like his whole world is falling out of alignment for just one moment.

He understands all too well - the evidence is quite damning, after all - why that feeling comes rushing up to greet him like an old friend in this moment. Why it feels like his world - only just beginning to reach such a tentative balance within the last few months - seems like it’s threatening to fall. A fragile thing teetering on the edge of falling and shattering.

He realises that he’s been entirely silent in the face of Hannibal’s admission, and he feels the blood rush back horribly into his face. He opens his mouth to say something, anything, and is confused for a moment when Hannibal’s voice seems to spill from it.

“Will.”

But it’s not Hannibal speaking for him, it’s just Will, sitting here and gaping dumbly at an ache that he has no right to feel, while Hannibal gently calls his name.

“No, it’s okay.” He finally manages to retch the words. He rubs his hands over his face, wonders if he can pretend that he’s just tired. “Listen, you’re - you’re right. You should -”

“Will.”

And there is something so soft, so tender in the lilting consonants that form his name - and god, Hannibal is right because something about his voice finds the loose thread even in Will’s chaotic, panic-scattered consciousness and tugs until he’s forced to stop his search for words and look up into that warm gaze.

“It’s not for you, Will.”

And before he even has a chance to do more than draw breath for a sardonic, unflatteringly bitter laugh - perhaps even an ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ gag - Hannibal lowers his voice even further, never once breaking eye contact with Will, who can do nothing but allow it, and try not to do anything as stupid as hold his breath for fear that he might miss a single word.

“If I wanted to discourage a more intimate relationship with you, Will, I would perhaps start with not sharing details that only you have ever enquired about.”

Hannibal falls silent again, watching Will carefully and with an amusement so gentle that it doesn’t sting when it lands on Will’s skin, observing his words gradually sink in like an early-morning mist.

Will releases a breath that is shamefully unsteady, and can’t work out why it feels like the most honest thing he’s ever shared with someone.

Hannibal smiles. “I’m sorry for startling you, Will.”

“Re-gift it, Dr Lecter.”


End file.
